


roses, in the gray of december

by 6th_magnitude



Series: sehnsucht [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Fix-It, Gen, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Missing Scene, Multi, Universal constants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-16 11:55:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18690988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/6th_magnitude/pseuds/6th_magnitude
Summary: Steve Rogers is haunted by words spoken long ago.(Takes place at the end of Endgame. Canon compliant.)





	roses, in the gray of december

 

Steve thinks about Peggy.

Steve thinks about Peggy, because he is always thinking about Peggy. In between the action, in the silences and down-time he’s had over the past decade, his mind always drifts towards the _what if_. But now, he thinks about Peggy with a renewed fervour. Guilt prickles his skin and snaps at his heels, and he thinks _I did this to her._

Steve knows now how easy the choice to sacrifice yourself is, and how hard it is to be left in the wake of that sacrifice.

***

He’s always too late to save the people who matter, and this time is no different. He’s barely registered what’s happening before a blaze of light envelops them all. Stunned, he shields his eyes.

The noise of battle halts, and is replaced by an eerie silence.

He lowers his arm, squinting against the light. When can see again, his vision adjusts to the sight of a field of enemies turning to ash.

His eyes track to the middle of it all, searching for what he already knows he’ll find. Tony – obnoxious, arrogant, infuriating Tony Stark is staggering away from what remains of Thanos. Steve has seen enough men take a mortal wound to know what happens next. White noise buzzes through his ears – the residual magic of the Infinity Stones or shock, he doesn’t know – and he watches as Spider-Man reaches Tony first. Spider-Man, then Pepper, then him.

Too late to do anything. Tony’s already halfway to ash.

He watches the scene play out like a movie, the grieving boy, the sobbing wife – widow. The sobbing widow. Tony’s dead, the smile fading from his lips, the light gone from his eyes.

 _This is wrong,_ Steve thinks. _It shouldn’t be this way._

“What just happened?” someone asks beside him. Steve’s vision blurs.

He remembers, so long ago. A decade ago, when they were both so much younger.

_Please tell me nobody kissed me._

“We won,” he says, and feels tears sting at his eyes. He walks forward to Tony – to the body of Tony Stark. Rhodey has taken Pepper in his arms, and Steve knows it’s his responsibility to deal with the body of his fallen comrade. He closes Tony’s eyes shut with a gloved hand, digs under the armour to lift Tony up in his arms. He walks, with Tony’s limp body, his head hanging slack towards the sky. The other Avengers are falling in, murmuring his name like a prayer. “Iron Man,” they say with reverence, grief and tenderness. “Stark,” and “Tony.”

He keeps walking. They form a procession behind him.

He takes the body to the ruins of the Compound. The Avenger ‘A’ has cracked in half, and the image somehow finds a new way to break Steve’s already aching heart. He climbs the ruins, lays Tony’s body at the top of a mound of rubble, and turns to see a constellation of faces staring up at him from below.

He realises they want a speech, and doesn’t know what to say.

“Tony-” he starts, then swallows, starts again. “Tony and I didn’t always agree on everything.” He pauses, words already betraying him. Everything he’s ever done for Tony is so goddamn inadequate, and now this, a final insult for Steve to toss onto the pyre.

His audience murmurs, uncertain, and he resumes. “When I first met him, I – I didn’t think he was a good person. I was wrong,” he admits. “He was the best of us. He was the one who gave up his life to save us all. He wanted the Avengers together, to protect Earth.” His voice breaks on the last word, and he sways with exhaustion.

 _Tony is dead,_ he thinks. _We won’t be a team again. He will never see the Avengers reunited._

War Machine lands beside him, and grips Steve’s shoulder with his armoured hand. It’s too strong a grip, and yet not strong enough - a poor shadow of another hand, in another metal gauntlet.

“Earth just lost her best defender,” Steve says, for the second time in his life. “But it won’t – it can’t be for nothing. He gave up his life, his family, so that all of us could live. Remember that sacrifice. We won today, we live today, because of him. Because of Iron Man.”

“To Tony Stark!” Rhodes shouts beside him.

“Tony Stark!” those below yell, and “Iron Man!”

Steve leaves the body there, and stumbles down the rubble, tripping on his way down. Bucky is there to catch him and hold him upright.

“We need to get you to a hospital,” Bucky says. “And most of these people, for that matter.”

Steve doesn’t argue. He sits down on a broken wall, and stares at his hands. When the medics eventually come for him, spirited there by Doctor Strange or some other power, he knows not – when they come for him, they find him unresponsive and unwilling to leave. If he leaves the battlefield, everything really will be over. If he leaves Tony’s body, he might not ever see it again.

“Steve,” Bucky says. He might have been saying his name for a while. Fondness for his best friend breaks through, overcomes him, and he gets up and hugs Bucky fiercely.

“I’m so glad you’re not dead, Buck,” Steve whispers, and Bucky pats him on the head consolingly.

“Me too, punk.”

“Jerk,” Steve laughs, and then leans his head against Bucky’s right shoulder, resting. Just for a moment.

***

The funeral is just two days later - quiet, private and peaceful. _Everything Tony wasn’t_ , Steve thinks. Perhaps that’s unfair – Tony had his moments, when he thought nobody was looking. But now it’s just down to the Avengers and his closest friends and family, watching a small wreath float out on the lake. The body had all but disintegrated, and the Iron Man suit was caught up in SHIELD bullshit. Tony wasn’t here to blast his way through red tape, and neither Steve nor Pepper had the energy to try.

Pepper has words of thanks for everyone who has come together for him. She never wails, or weeps, just smiles through glistening eyes and looks peaceful. Perhaps there’s a part of her that can finally rest now that she won’t have to wait and wonder where her husband is, and how he’s doing. Whether he’s alive or not. For his part, Steve doesn’t cry at all, doesn’t even come close to it. He feels like the Tony Stark who laid down his life is a total stranger to him suddenly, given tribute in this small wooden house on a lake in the middle of nowhere. His wife and kid and shed full of gardening tools make him look like he had the life of any other ordinary American man.

_Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist._

Morgan is quiet and still, like Steve, but Steve doesn’t know whether or not she knows exactly what is happening. If she’s anything like her father, she’s smart enough to know. Maybe she’s not old enough to know how to process it yet. Maybe she’s not old enough to drink through the pain.

Steve doesn't know where his unkind thoughts come from. That Pepper can finally get a break, that Morgan won’t have to grow up with an alcoholic, irresponsible father. There’s an anger inside him that’s wholly inappropriate for a funeral. He’s so angry at Tony, and he doesn’t even know why. For dying? For leaving his wife and kid here, alone?

He wants to punch something. To go for a sprint, or throw his now-broken shield. Tony isn’t here to fix it this time, he supposes. He’s not really sure why Tony fixed it up in the first place. What was Steve to Tony – just some guy begging him to save the world yet again, pretending there wasn’t a very real chance he’d die in the course of doing so?

_That shield doesn't belong to you. You don't deserve it!_

Steve breaks away from the gathered mourners, and paces around the property. He finds an axe, and a pile of wood, and almost laughs.

_Seems like you walked away alright._

Steve’s memory has always been exceptional since the serum, but he’s never realised what a double-edged sword it could be.

_Isn't that the ‘why we fight’? So we can end the fight. So we get to go home!_

“I’m sorry,” Steve whispers, to an empty clearing.

“Steve?” Pepper’s voice calls out from behind him. He turns around, and finds her with Morgan shyly tucked behind her legs. “You okay?”

Steve grimaces. “With all due respect, ma’am, I feel like I should be asking you that.”

Pepper smiles, ever the gracious host. “ _Pepper_ , Steve, please. Come inside – there’s plenty of food. And tea, coffee, or anything – it might help you feel better. Thor’s been going heavy on the liquor supply already, so don’t feel shy. Whatever you want, it won’t be an imposition.”

“It’s my fault,” Steve says, suddenly. “I made him do this, Pepper. He told me he didn’t want to give-” he sweeps his hand in a gesture at the house “- _this_ up, and I made him do it. He had his happy ending, and I took it away from you, and him, and Morgan.”

Pepper shakes her head. “Tony was never going to sit by and watch other people save the world for him, Cap. You know that as well as I do.”

 _Cap,_ Steve thinks. Tony talked about him to Pepper. Complained, probably. All this time, all these years separated and angry at one another seem so idiotic and fruitless now.

Morgan leaves her mother’s side for a moment and stumbles forward to Steve. “This is for you,” she says, and pushes a small envelope into Steve’s hand. _Capsicle,_ it says in brashly scrawled script, and Steve feels his throat constrict a little.

“Thanks, Morgan,” Steve says, crouching down to her height. “Your dad was really – he was really amazing, you know that right?”

“Dad’s the best Avenger,” Morgan says, and her round face breaks into the first smile Steve’s seen on her. “You’re Cap, a stinky mean-face. He told me who you are.”

Steve bites his lip, grinning despite himself. “I guess he did.”

“Sorry,” Pepper says, admonishing Morgan with a ruffle of her hair. “She’s-”

“Just like her father,” Steve says, smiling up at her. “She’s brilliant.”

“Come back to the house?” Pepper asks. “There’s someone who wants to speak with you, I think.”

Steve follows her, curious. When he sees Nicholas J. Fury standing on the edge of the pier, hands clasped behind his back, he feels almost disappointed. Steve wonders if he was there for the funeral, or just flew in at the right time to talk shop. As he walks towards him, he has a brief impulse to push him into the water, just to take out his restless energy on _someone_.

“Good to see you alive, Nick,” Steve says. “We spent a good few weeks working out what the hell that beacon was. You could have told us. Trusted us, in case it didn’t work.”

“She got the job done, and most of us are still here, so why are you complaining?” Fury replies, eyebrows raised. “Lord knows you have made the wrong decision enough times now to be a little less arrogant.”

Never one to mince words, Nick Fury.

“Why did you never summon Captain Marvel to help us before, anyway?” Steve counters. “We could have used her aid countless times.”

“Perhaps I knew that you could handle it,” Nick says. “And so you did, until I started disintegrating into goddamn drywall pieces in front of my own eyes and I thought, ‘Gee whiz, those caped crusaders finally got their asses handed to them.’”

“Your caped crusaders did what they had to,” Steve says, coldly. “Nat and Tony – they gave up everything for it. Why are you here, Fury? Are you going to ask me to bring the band back together already?”

“Your pretty speech over Stark’s corpse implied you would.” Fury says, turning to face Steve properly for the first time. “Something about protecting the Earth, if I recall?”

Steve knows that Fury wasn’t there to hear that, and equally knows Fury already knows everything that happened on that day better than Steve does.

“This may surprise you,” Fury says, addressing the lake again, “but I was actually quite fond of Iron Man. You know, we talked once, years ago, and I knew then that it would probably end like this.”

Steve blinks. “Why? What did he say?”

“He saw the future, you know that. Or a vision, a nightmare, if you will. Whole world of heroes dead, because of him. I told him, it was nothing he could set in motion on his own. You know what he thought the worst part of it was, though? That he didn’t die too, with the rest of you.”

_Tony was never going to sit by and watch other people save the world for him, Cap._

“Alright,” Steve says. “I know. He sacrificed himself for us. I know that.”

“Do you?” Fury asks. “Do you know how much he actually cared about all of you? About you, Captain?”

“What does that mean?” Steve snaps. “We _were_ friends, Fury. I know how much he cared, alright, I know we both screwed up, and now he’s dead and I can’t change any of it, so what is the _point_ of telling me this?”

“I’m just telling you this because Stark was too proud for his own damn good,” Fury says, and sounds sad for the first time. “And because you were right. Stark would have wanted the Avengers to go on. So I’m here to tell you that the Avengers will go on, and you can be their leader if you want it. If you don’t, we’ll have a problem, because I can’t trust any of these other idiots as far as I can throw them.”

“That sounds halfway to a compliment,” Steve remarks, amused.

“What can I say,” Fury says, turning back towards the house and clapping Steve on the shoulder. “You’ve earned it, Captain. Think about it, won’t you?”

“I’ll think about it, Nick,” Steve says. “But first we need to return the Infinity Stones to where they belong.”

“I get the feeling you’re going to leave me waiting for a long time then.” Fury walks away, then pauses and turns back.

“Steve?”

Steve looks back at him.

“A word of advice; sometimes you have to go back before you can move forward. I won’t hold that against you. But others might. Be kind to them.”

“Thanks, Nick,” Steve says, even though he hasn’t yet quite grasped what Fury is talking about.

***

When he sleeps, he dreams of Tony as he first met him. Obnoxious, arrogant, infuriating Tony Stark, the Helicarrier a blur around them.

“You’re not the guy to make the sacrifice play,” Steve snarls. But Tony just smiles, almost apologetically.

“The truth is I don't wanna stop,” he admits. “And to not die trying would be nice.”

Somewhere, outside of this dream, another Steve wants to take it all back and comfort Tony. But the Steve in the dream doesn’t stop confronting him.

“You may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero.”

"Impact radius is getting bigger every second. We're gonna have to make a choice,” Tony says, eyes on something in the distance. Steve feels like a ghost to him. The anger, frustration in him comes like nothing he’s ever known. He wants to scream, so he does.

"He’s my friend!” Steve roars, but this time his words aren’t directed at Tony. This time, his words aren’t about Bucky.

The dream shifts, changes. Steve sees them seated all around him – the Avengers. They’re laughing together, years ago, crowded over a table at a small, dingy restaurant.

Tony is there, beside him. The laughter fades to a soft smile as he turns to look at Steve directly in the eyes for the first time.

“What? I made it for you.” Tony says.

Steve wakes up, sweating. He punches the bed, then twice, then throws a pillow against the wall.

_What happened to cutting the wire, Tony?_

***

He doesn’t open the envelope. One morning, he holds it in his hands, turning it over and over like he used to turn over his presents before Christmas. But just like a Christmas present, he feels like something important will be lost once it’s opened. Maybe it’s just Tony swearing at him. Maybe it’s just a single photo of Iron Man with his middle finger pointed up. Until he opens it, Steve can pretend there’s something that will give him closure, will make the wasted time they spent fighting justified somehow.

He goes about life as before, but it’s off-colour, as though it were coming through a badly tuned television set. The world hasn’t yet righted itself around the five years of grief – nor is undoing that damage as easy as they had once thought. Some people didn’t come back. Killed at the wrong instant, in a car driven by someone who disintegrated or under the medical care of someone who was in the unlucky half. One of the men Steve went to support group with e-mails him, says he wants his advice – he has to choose between his new relationship and his old lover brought back from the dead. As it turns out, snapping the fingers of the Infinity Gauntlet didn't make all of the world’s problems go away.

They move the Avengers into a new facility, an old Stark mansion. Fury says Tony left it to them all in his will. He keeps them all there while they set up communicators that will work across vast distances and even different realms. “If it happened once, it can happen again,” Fury quips, and forbids them from leaving until he’s processed them all into his systems. “Besides, it’s a good opportunity to bond with your fellow heroes.”

Steve feels like some part of Fury is just delighted to finally have the army of superheroes he always wanted, even if only for a week or two.

It’s a good idea as it turns out, other than the vastly increased rate of property damage that comes from housing heroes together. They all get along, more or less, and the collection of exuberant personalities help some of the older Avengers – Wanda, Rhodey, Bruce, Clint - not dwell as much on the ones they lost.

Steve though, still feels as though he's been cast adrift. He isn’t even sure how he’s meant to react to what happened. He has lost too much to celebrate, and yet he hasn’t lost enough to justify his monumental grief. He feels empty, purposeless. Sometimes he spends hours just lying down, thinking over everything. Wondering if there was a way out he didn't see, or what he could have done differently to change what happened. If they call on him, he’ll be there. But when he doesn’t have a mission, he lies restless in his new accommodation, wasting hours to thoughts about a past he can’t change.

The quantum transporter takes time to rebuild, with Tony’s data and facilities destroyed. Bruce does his best, but just like before there’s always some link he’s missing, some instrument a little too fragile for his massive hands, and they can’t afford to make mistakes this time. They spend shifts guarding the Infinity Stones, and a couple of idiots decide to break in to try and steal it. All amateurs, especially compared to Thanos. Steve is there when one of them try, and pinning the culprit down to the floor is laughably easy.

“Please,” the black-suited man begs. “I just want her back.”

“Sorry,” Steve says dully, sounding cruel even to himself.

After those incidents, they work on the transporter with renewed conviction, ever paranoid that someone will eventually fight them for it and win. If they wait long enough, Steve is sure the forces of some distant galaxy will come to claim their prize – even if there’s clearly no match for the Avengers on Earth.

Steve wants to feel a drive to do something, anything, but protecting the Infinity Stones becomes his only reason to get up. He thinks more and more of Peggy, and Tony, and of how he did wrong by both of them. If he took the Stones back, was there a chance he would see Peggy again? Could he see Tony again in 2012, and apologise – even for something he hadn’t done yet?

Bucky catches him at the end of a shift guarding the Stones, and pulls him aside. “You’ve been out of it for weeks, Steve. We’ve all noticed it.”

“I won’t slip up.”

Bucky gives him an unimpressed look. “You think I worry about that? Or care? I’m your best friend. I know you. This isn’t about that. I’ve never seen you like this.”

“I know,” Steve says, even though he thinks it isn’t true. He’s been like this for as long as he can remember since the ice, thinking about Peggy. Feeling like he didn’t quite belong in the time he was in. Maybe – maybe there was a time he didn’t feel that way, when the Avengers were together. But that was so fleeting, and it has been so many years since then.

“What is this about, Steve?” Bucky asks. “If you won’t talk to me – I know this sounds stupid, but when I came back – in Wakanda, they have people you can talk to. They have psychologists here, too. But they really helped me, like you wouldn’t believe.”

“I keep thinking about her,” Steve says suddenly.

Bucky allows himself to smirk a little. “You’re in love with Sharon?”

Steve physically balks. “No, what? No. Where did you get that idea?”

Bucky shrugs. “I mean you haven’t talked about her in a while, but I didn’t know there was someone else. In fairness, it’s been five years, and-”

“Peggy,” Steve interrupts. “I keep thinking about Peggy.”

“Oh,” Bucky says, surprised. “After all this time? Still? It’s been – what, how many years, Steve?”

“I can’t help it,” Steve admits. “I saw her. When I went back, with Tony. I saw her in 1970, and she was so beautiful, and I couldn’t talk to her, and I-”

Bucky looks alarmed. “Woah, there. It’s okay. Hey, I didn’t know this – you guys went to 1970? – Man, nobody tells me anything, but I guess that’s fair-”

“I want to see her again, Bucky,” Steve admits finally. And at the same time, realises he will. He’s going to. There’s no doubt in his mind. “No, I _will_ see her again. I’m going to take the Tesseract back, and I’ll see her again, but this time it will be the last time. And I don’t know how to deal with that. I promised her a dance. And I can’t do that, give that to her, without changing the entire timeline.”

“She moved on though, right?” Bucky tries. “I mean, she had a husband. And kids. It wasn’t like she spent her whole life waiting for you, Steve.”

“I think a part of her did,” Steve says. “I think – I think a part of me is still waiting for her. That’s why it didn’t work with Sharon.”

Bucky blinks, and realisation dawns on his face. “You’re not thinking of staying there, are you?”

Steve won’t lie to Bucky. “I don’t know.”

Bucky looks scared, and then resigned. “It’s your life, Steve. You’ve more than earned the right to do what you want with it.”

“You’re my best friend, Buck,” Steve says, smiling at him.

“I know,” Bucky says, and he returns the smile back with a hint of sadness.

***

Training goes to hell.

It’s Steve’s attempt to do what Fury wanted and lead a giant team of heroes, but he feels rudderless, overwhelmed by the change in numbers and dynamics between people. Everyone starts chatting to each other and showing off, and Steve feels himself grow more irritated by the second.

Why isn’t anyone _sad_? Why are they all treating this like a game? It’s not fair of him, but he feels like they’re dishonouring Nat and Tony’s legacy somehow. Even though he knows Tony would absolutely have been the most insufferable of all of them, if he were here.

“Spider-Man, get it together,” he snaps, and the kid wilts under his disapproval. Steve feels bad immediately. It’s hard on the kid too, being in an open training field with nothing to swing from. Completely out of his element. But he has to get used to it – that’s what training is for. So nobody has to die needlessly.

“Watch out, Rogers,” Carol calls from above, and Steve ducks just in time to avoid being blasted by a stray energy beam.

“ _DO NOT_ release any kind of projectiles until I give the okay!” Steve barks, flinging his makeshift wooden shield across the field to protect The Wasp from a stray rocket launched by Shuri.

“Sorry Captain!” she grins in reply, not sounding sorry at all. “I didn’t account for some of these magical energies in my calculations!”

“Woah, take it easy, lemon squeezy,” Quill shouts, as Wanda uses her powers to crumple the weapon he’s holding up.

Nebula curses as her attack misses, and strikes Clint hard sideways, sending him flying into War Machine’s armour, which clangs loudly at the impact and knocks _him_ forward into Mantis.

“Fuck,” Rhodey swears.

“Language!” Steve cautions.

_Wait a second. No one else is gonna deal with the fact that Cap just said ‘language’?_

Steve feels like he’s fighting a losing battle. At least some people are working well together. Valkyrie and Okoye are well matched, and Bucky and Sam are engaging in fluid hand-to-hand, although Sam is finding it hard to keep up with Bucky’s stamina.

“That’s not fair!” Bruce howls. “He’s in my pants!”

“Anything’s fair if it gets the job done,” Ant-Man’s voice replies over the comms.

“Alright, ALRIGHT,” Steve yells over the clamour. “Avengers, assemble, on the ground.”

He’s halfway turned to the man beside him, before he remembers Tony isn’t there.

“Are you alright, Captain?” T’Challa asks, and Steve snaps back to attention.

“Sorry. Look, this clearly isn’t working with everyone doing whatever they want. Line up, and we’ll run some basic combat drills. And no talking, until I say so.”

He gets more than a few dark looks, but they follow his instructions without complaint.

Steve is too proud to admit that he misses their banter once it’s gone.

***

“You weren’t at training,” Steve says mildly.

Thor doesn’t acknowledge him at first, watching rain fall outside as he sips from a can.

“Thor.”

“Everyone just moves on,” Thor says. “Everyone else got back those they lost.”

Steve frowns. “What do you mean?”

“Thanos killed my people before the snap,” Thor says, his voice heavy with grief. “The Asgardians who fought him didn’t return when Bruce undid that. I lost – my brother, and – Heimdall, and -”

He turns to face Steve, finally, searching for words.

“I understand,” Steve says. “I’m sorry.”

“He liked to pretend to be you,” Thor says, chuckling. “He thought you were unbearably good, even more than he thought I was.”

“Loki?” Steve asks, although he already knows the answer.

“Yes,” Thor says, mournfully. “The Trickster God, mortals call him. I know he caused you pain, I know he did wrong, but-”

“I know what it’s like to have the world against someone you love, even if you’re not sure why they’ve done awful things.” Steve says, sitting by Thor in the windowsill. “You don’t have to explain that to me.”

“You truly are good, Steven Rogers,” Thor declares.

“I don't know about that,” Steve says softly. “Tony was the one who sacrificed himself, not me.”

“That was not your decision. You would have done the same in his place. I know it.” Thor pauses, and looks out the window once more.

“I loved my brother,” Thor says heavily, “And we had finally put aside our differences. We were finally going to work together, as a team. It was everything I had always wanted. And then Thanos took that away from me,” his voice shakes, “and I don’t get that back. And I never will. I lost my home, and most of my people, and my _brother._ ”

“Losing someone just as you reconcile with them - I know what that’s like too.” Steve wishes he didn’t.

“Then you know why I cannot look them all in the face now, and pretend I am fine,” Thor says seriously. He sips at his can again. “Before, I would numb the pain with games and drink, and somewhere in my heart I hoped Loki was just playing dead. Or that we could undo all of Thanos’ evil. But now we have, and I am none the richer for it.”

“I know,” Steve says. “Sometimes I can’t stand being alone either.”

Thor considers him, and nods. “Thank you for being a friend, Captain.”

Steve smiles. “We’ll always be friends deep down – the six of us. I wish I’d known what we had, back at the beginning.”

“We never truly know what we have until it’s gone,” Thor chuckles. “That is the folly of all beings, across all galaxies.”

Steve and Thor sit in silence together, watching the rain. Steve feels closer to Thor than he has to anyone in a while. Finally, Thor breaks the silence.

“When the Guardians leave, I think I will leave with them,” Thor says. “I don’t know when I shall return here.”

“I understand.” And Steve does, even if his heart sinks at the thought of losing yet another one of his original teammates. He stands up, and offers his hand. “It was good to have you on the team, Thor. You’ll always have a place with the Avengers.”

“In another time, perhaps,” Thor says sadly, shaking Steve’s hand with the aggressive motion of someone who never learned how to do it properly. “And - there’s one more thing that I may have forgotten to mention.”

“What is it?” Steve says, frowning.

We need to return Mjolnir,” Thor says, apologetically. “I shouldn’t have taken her from the past.”

Steve considers the hammer, lying on the kitchentop. “I’m glad you did. We may well not have won without it.”

“I think you will be the one to take Mjolnir back,” Thor says thoughtfully. “The others are not worthy enough to take her. And I – I have already said my farewell to Asgard, and my mother. I do not think I could be trusted to return if I went back again.”

“That’s noble of you,” Steve says mildly.

“So it will be you,” Thor says, as though he hasn’t spoken. “And as such, I have a favour to ask you.”

Steve nods, ready for anything. But he isn’t ready for tears to fill Thor’s eyes, and for him to choke pleadingly, “Find a way to tell my brother - to tell him I love him. I believed I would see him again when I was there, and now I know I will never get him back. Tell him that for me, Captain.”

“I will,” Steve promises.

***

Clint and Sam happen across him when he’s shooting mindlessly at targets.

“You trying to disintegrate that felt man won’t bring them back,” Sam observes.

“Trust me, I’ve tried,” Clint adds.

“I’m not trying to do anything,” Steve says, lowering his gun. “Just getting in some practice.”

Sam and Clint exchange a look. Steve resents them for it.

“We’re just concerned about you, Steve,” Sam says, in his best group-therapy-leader voice. Steve knows he means well, but he doesn’t want to hear it right now.

“I don’t need to be looked after,” Steve retorts, then regrets it. “Sorry. I just mean I’m fine,” he adds, in a deliberately calm voice.

“Sure you are,” Clint says. “And my mother’s the empress of K'un-Lun. Well, you don't know my mother, but-”

“There’s no shame in not being okay with things,” Sam cuts in. “It’s a normal response to losing people.”

 _We are NOT_ _soldiers!_

“I’m so fucking torn up about Nat I feel like going back to being Ronin,” Clint admits. “Killing people, to feel like I’m avenging _something_. The only thing stopping me is knowing how much she hated who I was back then.”

“I’m okay, really,” Steve insists. “It’s just been – a long five years. Longer than that, even.”

“Of course,” Sam says softly. “Just letting you know, if you need someone,”

“We’re here,” Clint adds. “You know, or any of your other friends. We all deal with it in different ways. But we need each other. No man is an island, and all. I wish – I wish someone had been there to say that to me five years ago, to tell me to go to Nat, when I was dealing with the Snap. And now I can’t take back that time.”

Steve laughs bitterly. “I wish someone had told me that years ago, too.”

Sam shrugs. “We only have the time we get given, Steve. All we can do is decide what to do with it.”

“You stole that from Lord of the Rings,” Clint accuses, turning on him, and Sam chuckles.

“It’s good advice though, isn’t it, Legolas? Anyway, think about it Steve. We’re all here to help.”

“I appreciate that,” Steve says slowly. They walk off, leaving Steve alone with his thoughts, but he’s barely picked up his gun when he senses someone else emerge from the shadows.

“I know what you're going to say,” Steve starts, aiming his gun at the target on the wall.

“Yes. They’re right,” Wanda says sadly from behind him. “But it’s not too late, you know. For you, years ago.”

“Huh?” Steve asks, but when he turns around, she’s gone.

***

This time, Tony is sitting across the table from him, in one of the meeting rooms of the Compound. Steve opens his mouth to say something kind, but Tony attacks him before he has a chance.

"Sometimes I want to punch you in your perfect teeth,” Tony hisses at him, looking both angry and hurt at the same time.

Steve cowers under the offensive. “I’m sorry. I am. Tony, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to lead, without you here. I need you.”

“I _needed_ you. As in, past tense. What you need is too late buddy, sorry.”

Steve hides his face in his hand. “I didn’t ask you to do this for us. I didn’t know we’d be losing you, Tony.”

"Give me a break! I'm doing what has to be done.”

“I wish there had been some other way,” Steve whispers.

"Yeah? Well, it’s time for me to tap out,” Tony says, standing up from the table. Instinctively, Steve grabs him by the hand, and Tony, surprised, turns back and sinks slowly into his chair. The anger is gone from his eyes, replaced by curiosity.

There’s a pause, and then Tony is staring at him. Almost daring him to do something - Steve doesn’t know what.

“Then why are you here?" Tony asks, slowly.

As though to prompt him, he puts his hand over Steve’s, a strangely comforting gesture. There’s warmth radiating from his gaze. Steve feels himself lose lucidity, the dream shifting into something else, something unknowable.

“I don't know,” Steve replies eventually. “Family, stability... The guy who wanted all that went down in the ice seventy-five years ago. I think someone else came out.”

“You all right?” Tony asks, voice brimming with a strangely powerful concern.

“I’m home,” Steve says, simply. In that moment, in the logic of the dream, it is somehow true.

There’s a pause, as though this dream-Tony is assessing Steve’s reply.

“Do you trust me?” Tony asks, finally.

“I do.” Steve replies, and twines Tony’s fingers between his.

***

He tells the old team that he’s going to take the Infinity Stones back on his own.

“That doesn’t seem fair,” Bruce says, and Clint says “Too risky-”

Steve holds up a hand. “I’m the only one who can lift Mjolnir,” he says. “I’m the only one who knows exactly what went wrong in 2012 and 1970 now that Tony is… gone. The other Stones are easy by comparison.”

“The Captain is indeed the best candidate,” Thor says broodingly. Clint folds his arms, annoyed.

“You don’t have to keep emphasizing the rest of us aren’t worthy enough, Thor. What if something goes wrong on the first trip, and Steve loses the other Stones?”

“I won’t,” Steve says firmly.

“No,” Bruce sighs, resigned. “He won’t. Because it’s sort of already happened, hasn’t it?”

Clint makes a face. “I don’t get how this works at all.”

“I don’t have a family, Clint,” Steve cuts in. “You can’t risk it. Tony did, and look what happened.”

“You don’t need to remind me,” Clint says sourly.

“It’s going to be me,” Steve says, final. It’s the first time he’s felt like their leader in a while.

_Actually, he's the boss. I just pay for everything and design everything and make everyone look cooler._

The others consider Steve with varying looks of consternation.

“Well,” Bruce says finally. “If you’re going to take them back, you should talk to Strange before you leave. His teacher is the only reason I know we have to take them back in the first place. He might know something else important, in case we screw it up again.”

“If I must," Steve sighs.

***

After the blank, gloomy apartments Steve has been staying in, he finds himself strangely enamoured with Strange’s home. Perhaps it’s the smell of dusty books that reminds him of his old life, before the war. Sunlight streams through the windows in an ethereal orange light, and Steve reflects that when he was younger he might have been more astounded by being in the presence of an actual wizard. He misses that easily impressed innocence, like his past self is someone foreign to him now.

“You’re here to ask about time travel,” Strange declares, from his balcony. He seems to have the same fondness for dramatics that Tony had.

“I’m here to make sure I do it right,” Steve says, “and to prepare for if something goes wrong.”

“Wise of you,” Strange murmurs, flowing down the staircase as though he’s walking on air rather than wood and carpet. “Or rather, wise of Banner, perhaps.”

Steve had never liked it when the scientists talked as though he wasn’t there. “Is there anything I should know?”

Strange considers him for a moment, holding one hand upwards and twirling magical symbols around his index finger. “Many things you should know, entire libraries of things. A few vital things of importance, but none to do with time travel – or perhaps everything to do with it. It depends, I suppose. How much you want to do, or not. Everything depends on the human heart, in the end.”

Steve almost regrets coming. “Whatever you think is important, then.”

Strange laughs. “What isn’t? The millions of other possibilities and universes are just as important as ours. Every choice you make is far more significant than that of the average man. Ideally, someone should have infinite knowledge for such a life.”

Steve waits.

“Tea?” Strange asks. “I’m partial to Irish breakfast these days.”

“I – suppose. Black, please,” Steve says, nonplussed. Strange ushers him through to a sitting area, the antique armchairs far too beautiful and expensive looking for Steve to feel comfortable sitting on. Strange procures a teapot from the air and delicate matching tea cups alongside it.

“Did Tony know?” Steve asks, suddenly, remembering. “He said that you knew how to stop it, that we had one chance. Did you tell him he had to die?”

“No,” Strange replies. He’s looking at the tea as he pours it, but Steve thinks he sounds a little regretful, at least. “I knew this was how it was going to happen. But if I had told him, he might not have done it. Or perhaps; the path where it happened was the one I didn’t tell him. But he knew just before it happened. For what it’s worth, he seemed at peace with the realisation.”

Steve sits in silence with that thought for a minute. “It doesn’t seem fair. He spent all this time warning us, and he had to die for it, too.”

“Much of what happens isn’t fair, you will find,” Strange says, pensively. “But were Tony not your closest friend, you might consider one life a small sacrifice for billions.”

“He isn’t – wasn’t – my closest friend,” Steve says, bemused. What was Strange talking about?

“Of course,” Strange says, smoothly. “Regardless, he knew the cost, and he did not hesitate to make his choice.”

“I know. But…” Steve picks up his tea, and sips it. It’s the perfect temperature, naturally. He feels a little resentful that some people can have magic abilities like that. “But it just doesn’t seem fair - why that was the only option.”

“It wasn’t the only option.”

Steve nearly drops his cup. _“What?”_

“It wasn’t the only option,” Strange repeats. “It was the only outcome I could influence to happen with the limited time I had. But if I’d seen this coming sooner, if things had been different, I know Tony need not have died. That thought haunts me, but of course, any action I have taken could have had much better or worse outcomes-”

 _“_ What – what do you mean – _Tony need not have died_?” Steve growls, his voice shaking. “You sent him to die, I thought that was the only choice!”

“I didn’t send him to die.” Strange rebuts, irritated. “I told him there was one outcome I could see from that point, and of millions of possibilities-”

“What was the other option?” Steve demands, talking over him.

“You,” Strange says, simply. “You’re the other option, if you must know, but Tony would never let you die, so it came back to him, and therefore he became the only option. Do you want me to go on, or is that enough guilt for you? Because once I say it, you’ll know this and carry it with you as I carry my own.”

“Say it,” Steve says, his hands shaking as he sets down his tea.

Strange looks at him pityingly. “You really don’t get it. How could you?”

“Tell me. Please. I need to know.”

Strange sighs, and puts down his cup and saucer on the table. He waves his hands about and creates a portal, through which Steve sees himself – a version of himself. The background is foreign, but it’s definitely him.

“There are so many universes,” Strange starts. The scene shifts, and he’s there again, in a different place and time, with Thor beside him. Now Bucky. Now Hulk, and Natasha.

“But there are some things that make all the difference to what happens to them. Small things, things you wouldn’t believe. A rat poking around in the right place, or the flip of a coin. But some things are important – consistent to the health of the universe. Universal constants, if you will. And if those are thrown out of line, the health of that universe deteriorates.”

Steve watches as the scene changes, and monsters attack. He watches himself die now, getting shot, getting crushed by a giant. Being sliced in half by some sort of masked warrior.

“I’m a universal constant?”

Strange laughs. “No. _You both_ are,” he says, and this time he’s attacked by a giant snake, but a flash of red flies into view and carries him out of harm’s way. It shifts again, and this time they’re both fighting off a horde of advancing mechanical spiders, back to back. They. Him and Tony.

“I – I don’t-”

“The Ancient One knew that the condition of giving you that stone was that you would return them to their rightful place. A universal constant, you see? At least, if we can help it. Other things don’t matter as much – other things shift and change, but some things affect the fabric of reality more profoundly.”

“I affect the fabric of reality?” Steve says, confused. “Tony does?”

“You both have the singular ability to make the universe go very well or very poorly depending on how friendly you are feeling towards each other on a given day,” Strange replies sardonically. “Of course it’s a lot more complicated than that, but nevertheless, your friction in our reality brought several levels of hell down on us all.”

Steve flinches. “You’re telling me that if we – if we had agreed on things, signed off on the Accords, been a team – this wouldn’t have happened.”

_You said ‘we’ll do that together, too’. And guess what, Cap? We lost, and you weren’t there._

“A different version of it may or may not have happened,” Strange says. “But ultimately, you did make those choices, and we were left with the timeline we are in, and there’s not much we can do to affect that. Changing the past doesn’t affect the future you left behind, it just creates a new one.”

“It _is_ my fault, then,” Steve says, dazed. “All of it.”

“Of course it’s not,” Strange sniffs, annoyed. “ _You_ didn’t choose to end half the universe. You can’t help your ignorant actions, your path, or your heart. You were born into this new time too late, and you fought with Stark too early. None of what happened is your fault. It’s simply the flow of events and consequences, nothing more.”

“In other timelines -”

“If I tell you what happens, you’ll be driven half-mad with the millions of possibilities and lives you will never be able to have or experience. I will not be responsible for Captain America’s derangement.”

Steve suddenly sees himself laughing with Tony and Nat somewhere on a couch, watching television with the other Avengers. He knows Strange is right.

“Besides,” Strange adds, mysteriously, “If I tell you what happens… it won't happen.”

“What if I want it to happen?” Steve asks.

Strange smiles, that irritating, arrogant smirk that seems to imply he knows all the secrets of the world. _Maybe he does_ , Steve thinks.

“If I’ve learned one thing, Steven Rogers,” Strange states nonchalantly, suddenly inspecting his tea very closely, “it’s that those whose fates are most tied to destiny seem least inclined to accept the inevitable.”

_And I – am – Iron Man._

“Damn straight,” Steve mutters, and Strange actually chuckles.

***

Steve still thinks about Peggy, but now he thinks about Tony almost as much. The _what ifs_ of two lives, one lived and one unlived. Steve doesn’t know whether he needs to just let the dead lie. What was the right thing to do – to give Peggy the love story she deserved? To make sure he didn’t fight with Tony in other futures? To save Bucky from ever becoming the Winter Soldier, or SHIELD from Hydra agents, or come back to this time and keep fighting for justice here?

Or -

_I don't trust a guy without a dark side. Call me old fashioned._

Tony had always told him to get a life, hadn’t he? To be selfish, for once? What did he, Steve Rogers, want?

Steve didn’t know the answer to that. All he knew was that the present didn’t feel like home to him at all.

***

He’s been avoiding Bruce, because the mournful, disapproving look he knows he’ll get is a hell of a lot more intimidating on the Hulk’s features. Unfortunately, he gets called in to run tests with the transporter.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Bruce says, measuring out Steve’s shoulders for some sort of calculation. “But,” he says, pausing, looking for something. “Ah. It's probably best that it’s you.”

“What do you mean?” Steve asks, staring at Bruce over his shoulder.

“Well,” Bruce sighs. “You gotta love Thor, but he’s a bit of a hazard these days – the racoon told me he barely got them through their mission to Asgard, and Thor was sober at that point as far as I’m aware.”

“Mm,” Steve says, non-committal. Bruce is right, but Steve feels like they’re being unfair on the man who lost half his people.

“Then there’s Clint, and he’s good, but too compromised by his guilt over what he feels was him killing Natasha – not to mention he’s not as superhuman as the rest of us,” Bruce continues, mildly. He’s typing numbers into a keyboard now, and a hologram of some sort of schematic beams into the air between them.

“You think he’d try to take her place?” Steve asks, casually.

“I _know_ he would,” Bruce says, peering at Steve over his too-small glasses. “I know I probably would too, even though I know how damn stupid that is. Plus, the Hulk isn’t exactly good for stealth,” he says, waving a gigantic arm in a gesture at himself. “And there’s the fact Rhodey would probably use the opportunity to say goodbye to Tony, in his own way.”

Steve nods, and thinks, _well, you probably shouldn’t let him know you’re planning on seeing Peggy again._

“Would that be a bad thing?” Steve says hesitantly. “For Rhodes, I mean.”

Banner stops working and considers him for a moment. “You know, you’re really not as heartless as Tony always made out, are you?”

Steve feels his heart sink in his chest. “I hope not,” he says quietly. Bruce seems to notice his expression close up.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Bruce sighs. “Tony knew you were a good guy, Steve. He just never quite got over losing you, so he insulted you instead. Only to his friends – you should have seen him defend you to anyone that thought to slight the name of Captain America in his presence. I guess the opposite of love isn’t hate, and so on.”

A weird expression crosses Bruce’s face. “And that’s… if you’re asking what I think you are. I mean, if you’re going to do that anyway. What’s another minor deviation from the plan, right?”

“What do you mean?” Steve asks.

“I was thinking,” Bruce says, “I wanted to get a message to Nat.”

***

It’s the night before he leaves, and all of the Avengers are gathered in their new warehouse facility. Someone has set up a massive television and some sort of console gaming system with about twenty controllers. Thor has his own stockpile of what he calls ‘New Asgardian Mead’, which Bruce privately tells Steve is absolutely nothing like the old sort.

“To our fallen comrades,” Thor says solemnly, when they have gathered. “We celebrate our victory and mourn your loss. Vision, our wisest friend. The Black Widow, our kindest Avenger. And Iron Man, without whom none of us would be here today.”

He pauses for a moment. “And Loki,” he murmurs quietly. “My foolish, brave brother.”

They all raise a toast to the fallen, following Thor’s lead. They are silent for a moment, and then Pepper speaks up.

“For what it’s worth, Tony would have wanted you all to get absolutely trashed in his memory. I believe he would have considered it an insult if you don’t cause at least two international incidents tonight,” she smiles. Thor claps her roughly on the back.

“Indeed! Lady Stark speaks truly. Let us celebrate with joy the lives of our fallen friends, and the victory they brought!”

Someone – the kid, Spider-Man, presumably, or perhaps Star-Lord – starts up a loud rock song over the speakers. The gathering erupts into a shout of triumph, and people start downing their alcohol in earnest. Steve smiles, watching them all. Having them all here – it’s almost enough. He lets himself sip at his drink, half tuning out the music and half drowning himself in it. Time slips by, and eventually Thor comes to sit next to him.

“It is hard to celebrate when we have lost those we love,” Thor observes. “I almost think it fortunate that most here did not know them, so they do not mourn and suffer as we do.”

“Some do,” Steve says quietly. Wanda sits across from them in the huge space, on another set of assorted chairs Bruce has dragged in from somewhere. She’s staring at her drink, quiet and contemplative. Pepper seems to have left. Clint never showed at all.

“Yes,” Thor agrees. “Some do. I wish I had more time with them, but we cannot change what is.”

 _We could,_ Steve thinks. _But not for this timeline. Not for these versions of us._

“In Asgard, we celebrate, Captain,” Thor says gruffly. “For our friends have surely ascended to Valhalla, the hall of heroes, for their good deeds. And that is no thing to mourn.”

“Thank you, Thor,” Steve says, clinking his glass against Thor’s oversized tankard. Thor smiles at him, and gets up to join the others. “Who wants another round?” he roars, to cheers and whooping noises.

Steve looks around him. Most of the Avengers are here, and happy, and Steve wishes he could join them. But all Steve can do is think how much Tony and Natasha deserved to be here too, and there’s an invisible wall that seems to block him out from the others. Even their voices seem strangely out of focus and muted.

Captain Marvel is making fast friends with Valkyrie, and Rhodey seems to be mediating some sort of contest between them. Rocket Racoon is playing on the television console game with several others, including Spider-Man, Ant-Man, and a crouched over, squinting Bruce. Sam is nearly shouting with enthusiasm in an amiable discussion with Wong, Okoye and T’Challa. The Guardians and a few others seem to be making short work of the pizza supply. Steve watches them all, as though from outside a shop window, or as though this is already a memory to him. He feels some bittersweet emotion surge through him.

Bucky sits down next to him then, just waiting with him in silence for several minutes. Finally, he turns to Steve, metal hand clenched tightly around his drink.

“Will we see you again, after tomorrow morning?” he asks quietly. “How will I know you made it through okay?”

“I’ll find a way back, Bucky,” Steve says. “I promise, no matter what happens, I’ll try to find a way back to you. This you, the one in front of me.”

“Don’t break your promise, then,” Bucky allows, smiling. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

“You probably won’t have to wait very long at all,” Steve chuckles. “Time travel’s convenient like that.”

***

He puts it off until he can’t anymore, until he risks never knowing.

It’s the eleventh hour, and Steve has drunk a fair bit. More than a fair bit, with his metabolism. But he feels stone cold sober as he opens the envelope from Tony. It’s not a letter, as Steve expected, but a thin USB, comically low-tech for Tony’s tastes. He probably would have thought Steve wouldn’t have had much by way of modern gadgets. But Steve still kept all the tech Tony had given him a decade ago. After all, it was Stark-made; they still worked like a charm, even after all these years.

He jams the thing into his old laptop, and the file auto-plays. A video, filmed in a dark study somewhere. He doesn’t look as old as Steve last remembers him; his hair is still dark brown, his face has fewer lines running through it.

“Steve, I don’t know if you’ll get this,” Tony starts, then pauses. “Look, okay. I know, this will sound stupid, but things just don’t seem to be working out lately, and sometimes I worry you’ll die, or I’ll die, and we’ll never kiss and make up, and honestly? I’m right, Rogers, and you’re an arrogant prick, and if I die at least I’ll die with you knowing that I was right, but-”

Steve exhales.

“But I’m getting off track, and back on this damned argument. Again. Why are we like this? All I want sometimes is just you and me, Rogers – Steve – _Cap_. Just you and me, doing something together, something stupid like going to a museum or fighting an army of a million slugs and that sounds _so stupid_ but it’s like, when I’m next to you and we don’t have these _things_ between us it’s like there’s no space between us at all. God this sounds like a love letter. Pepper!”

He swivels on his chair and yells at the doorway behind him.

“Just so you know, I’m not cheating on you with Steve!”

“Okay, dear,” Pepper calls back in a long-suffering voice. Steve snorts with a choked laugh despite himself.

“But hell, Steve, I wish we could just work together like that again, because we _do_ work, and I’m not crazy, and I know you feel that too. And then it’s like-” the Tony on screen snaps his fingers, “-wham, suddenly we’re at each other’s throats and everything is going wrong, absolutely everything in my life, and in the world, and with the Avengers, and I don’t even know why. I don’t know why you can’t just. No, okay, that’s not fair, we’re both stubborn idiots. We both fucked up. I guess what I’m trying to say is I miss you, and it’s not the same without you. And I hope one day we can get over this garbage because it seems pretty insubstantial compared to us working together as a team. I feel like – we could have been really close friends, you and I. And if I die, that’s pretty much the only thing I’ll regret.”

Steve doesn’t know when he started crying, but he feels a teardrop run down his cheek.

“So, that’s it. I don’t even know if I’ll send this to you, but Pepper and my psych say I have to, you know, _get it all out,_ so whatever. Merry Christmas, anyway,” he says, and the screen goes black.

Steve doesn’t move from his chair for a very, very long time.

***

He bolts awake in the middle of the night, Nick Fury’s words coming back to him. The clock on his bedside table reads 3:03AM in glaring red letters, and Steve sighs and rubs his eyes.

He writes two letters. One to Sam and Bucky, and a shorter one to the team. 

_Dear Sam and Buck,_

_If I don’t come back, I know you’ll find this. Bucky, I’ll do my best to fulfil my promise, but if I can’t – I’ve recently found out how important it to be to have some message, some sense of closure. I don’t want to leave you guys without that. So, here’s mine._

_Sam – Thank you for always looking out for me, for being my friend when I felt alone. Thank you for caring for everyone around you. You save civilians and heroes both. If I still had the shield, I’d give it to you. Look after Bucky for me. I hope he doesn’t drive you up the wall._

_Bucky – I’m sorry. I feel like I only just got you back. But I just don’t feel right in this place, in this time. Fury told me sometimes we have to go back to go forward, or something like that. I think what I’m looking for isn’t here anymore. I’m going to see Peggy again, and I think I’m going to leave a message for myself in 2012, too. Don’t tell Clint, he’d kill me. I think Bruce already knows._

_You’re my best friend, Bucky. I wish we had more time together. Hell, I’m sure we will, or we do, however these universes work. I told you I’d be with you until the end of the line, and I guess this is it the end of the line for me, in this time, in this universe. But I know you’ll be okay. I’ll see you around, bud._

_Steve_

He folds the paper over delicately, and tears off a new piece of paper from the pad. This one is harder to write. The Avenger’s faces flash through his mind, and he struggles to find the words to encompass the feeling of love and protectiveness he has for them all.

_Avengers –_

_All I want to say is thank you. You gave me the family I didn’t have._

_If I don’t make it back, I have a final request. Tony and I, we lost so much time fighting each other. Dividing everyone. Don’t let that happen again. Don’t let your differences, or mistrust between you, stop you from protecting what matters. Keep everyone united, keep the family together. It’s what Tony and Nat would have wanted. It’s what I want, too._

_Cap_

The two letters go in an envelope he leaves on his desk, with the words ‘TO: FALCON’ on the back in large, looping letters.

Unbidden, Pepper’s voice comes back to him.

_We’re going to be okay. You can rest now._

***

The last dream he has, Tony is sitting on the edge of the same pier where they held his funeral. Steve sits down on the pier next to him, his jeans sinking into water that isn’t wet, or cold. Everything is unnaturally still. Steve wonders if this is Tony’s heaven, or some version of it.

“I wish we could have done this while you were here.”

"Oh, it's definitely the end times,” Tony says, beside him. Steve laughs. Even his memory of Tony has a sense of humour. Of course he does. “I told you. You're gonna miss me. There's gonna be a lot of manful tears."

Steve laughs again, shaking his head. “I do miss you, Tony. But what are you doing here?”

“Me? I just want peace. But, turns out resentment is corrosive and I hate it.” Tony is watching the water shimmer on the lake. Steve feels overwhelmed with guilt once again, and grief for the time they lost fighting each other.

“I’m so sorry, Tony. I wish I’d done better. I wish things were different.”

“Well,” Tony replies, looking at Steve with exasperated fondness. “I got your second chance right here, Cap.”

Tony holds up the back of his hand, taps his wristwatch. Not a wristwatch. A quantum watch.

“Come on buddy, wake up.”

_That’s my man._

**Author's Note:**

> I wished to fix some character and relationship arcs left a little unresolved at the end of Endgame. I've planned for potential fics in this series that follow on from this work - let me know if that is something you'd want to read, if you have concrit/suggestions, and please don't hesitate to let me know if I've made a mistake somewhere (especially as I've only seen Endgame once, and have a pretty poor memory).


End file.
